Montreal Gazette » City Hallhttp://montrealgazette.com
Tue, 31 Mar 2015 20:50:18 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.com/http://0.gravatar.com/blavatar/ab6c5a9287c37a4f2ebe4dac7a314814?s=96&d=http%3A%2F%2Fs2.wp.com%2Fi%2Fbuttonw-com.png » City Hallhttp://montrealgazette.com
Editorial: At last, a Richler libraryhttp://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-at-last-a-richler-library
http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-at-last-a-richler-library#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2015 19:00:13 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=497411]]>In a 1997 interview with Quill & Quire timed to the publication of his last novel, Barney’s Version, Mordecai Richler gave this self-aware answer to the question: “Do you want to be liked?”

“I want my work to be well thought of. But myself? (…) I don’t solicit affection,” the notorious curmudgeon said, noting that as an often-harsh social critic, he considered himself “fair game.”

Thus, it’s hard to know whether Richler — who died in 2001 after a long and prolific career as an author, screenwriter, satirist and political commentator — would have been miffed or amused by the long-running saga over how the City of Montreal should honour him.

Richler was finally given his due as a “citizen of honour” in the city he immortalized in his literature. The Mile End Library, in the heart of the neighbourhood he depicted in the Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, will bear his name.

Quebec nationalists may still have sore feelings about Richler’s trenchant rebukes, making him a contentious figure for the city to celebrate. But he is, after all, a son of Montreal, who brought this city’s vibrancy and diversity to life in his novels, in a tender if biting manner. He remains one of the most important, renowned and passionate voices in the Quebec and Canadian canon.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-at-last-a-richler-library/feed0031215-MON0703-Richler9-21979720-MON0703-Richler9-W.jpgahanes2014The firefighters raged, and no one stopped themhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-day-firefighters-ran-amok-through-montreals-city-hall
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-day-firefighters-ran-amok-through-montreals-city-hall#commentsMon, 29 Dec 2014 05:01:30 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=438494]]>The protest at Montreal’s city hall started as they normally do, but something felt off.

People gathering to voice their displeasure at monthly city council meetings is not out of the ordinary, although, on this warm August evening, there were more protesters than usual. Almost all were men, mainly firefighters, and they were a bit louder than the norm, too, with horns and whistles and drums, protesting against the province’s attempt to reform their municipal pension plans.

What was unusual is that the dozens of police officers working security weren’t stationed at the entrance to make sure protesters don’t enter, as they usually are. They weren’t wearing riot gear, as they do when they’re expecting trouble. Instead, they were standing on the far side of the Place Vauquelin courtyard, wearing red baseball caps symbolizing their own anger with the pension reforms. That’s odd, I remember thinking, given the raucous nature of this protest, the adrenalin and testosterone flowing amid the clouds of smoke wafting through the air.

Then the protesters started flooding through the doors. Montreal’s city hall is a place of quiet decorum, in keeping with its mandate and the stateliness of the building in which it is housed. Marauding is not allowed. But there was no one to say no to the dozens of pumped up firefighters forcing their way past the handful of security guards, and only two police officers stationed inside.

It was Aug. 18, and hundreds of unrestrained protesters fuelled by mob mentality ran helter skelter through city hall, some trying to break into the mayor’s office, with the mayor inside.

Related

As a regular visitor to city hall who has to flash a pass to security guards to get anywhere, seeing men jogging up and down the stairways was as surreal as watching farm animals running amok in a library.

I was standing in council chambers, taking pictures as the firefighters blew horns and tossed papers. One turned to me and smiled as if to say: “Isn’t this fantastic?” And I thought: “Don’t you realize how much damage you’re doing to your cause?”

They would soon find out. Six firefighters would be fired, 57 municipal employees suspended without pay, another 44 arrested on criminal charges. Montreal would garner negative worldwide attention. Mayor Denis Coderre would score major public support for his pension reform battle.

An internal investigation by Montreal police found there was no overt collusion between police and firefighters, although it noted officers had been ordered to station themselves in front of the door, but did not. Police did not know until too late the firefighters were coming, the report said. Things degenerated quickly. Four police managers and four patrol officers were suspended without pay for failing to take proper action.

Journalists would ask police if they felt responsible for those firefighters losing their jobs. Because they failed to save the firefighters from themselves. The police commander said no.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-day-firefighters-ran-amok-through-montreals-city-hall/feed0120314-DEA14_0818_Protest_7097-1204_city_protest-W.jpgrbruemmerThe Story So Far: Report details police blunders at city hallhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-the-moment/the-story-so-far-report-details-police-blunders-at-city-hall
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-the-moment/the-story-so-far-report-details-police-blunders-at-city-hall#commentsThu, 04 Dec 2014 12:16:39 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=418011]]>Hello and welcome to The Story So Far for Thursday, Dec. 4.

Click on the audio player below to hear the rundown on some of the stories we’re following for you today.

http://wpmedia.montrealgazette.com/2014/12/ssfdec4.mp3]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/montreal-the-moment/the-story-so-far-report-details-police-blunders-at-city-hall/feed0111314-DEA14_0818_Protest_7097-1114_city_police-W.jpgjamesmennieBalancing civil rights and security at Montreal city hallhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/policing-civil-liberties-at-montreal-city-hall
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/policing-civil-liberties-at-montreal-city-hall#commentsSun, 30 Nov 2014 22:03:06 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=409310]]>The bulked up presence of police at Montreal city hall has become a regular feature and is raising concern about the trade-off between civil liberties and security, critics say.

Since November, Montreal police officers have systematically carried out so-called protective searches at city hall, frisking members of the public with metal detectors and searching their bags as they enter the building during public meetings of council. The measures also apply to journalists after the police ask to see their press passes.

Last week, officers stationed inside city hall during a council meeting where the city’s 2015 operating budget was being tabled went further, asking visitors to identify themselves and recording their names, birth dates and driver’s licence numbers.

An individual has the right under Quebec’s Code of Penal Procedure to refuse to give their name and address to the police.

However, it appears several people complied with the officers’ request. The matter came to light when journalists with 24 Heures discovered the officers had left their sheets of paper with the names and other personal information about the people who had identified themselves on a table next to an entrance at city hall.

It wasn’t an order of the speaker’s office, that’s clear.” — city council speaker Frantz Benjamin

“It wasn’t an order of the speaker’s office, that’s clear,” city council speaker Frantz Benjamin said about the recording of names and personal information. As speaker, Benjamin is custodian of city hall.

“From what I understood, it was the initiative of a police officer. It wasn’t even a directive of the Montreal Police Department.”

City council speaker’s office, in coordination with the mayor’s office, requested heightened police presence in October after a shooter in Ottawa killed a soldier at the National War Memorial and gained access to Parliament Hill’s Centre Block, Benjamin said.

A check with the city halls in Ottawa and Toronto found local police are not searching members of the public and are not stationed in those buildings.

Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre, standing, speaks during a City Council meeting in a room littered with papers from an earlier protest by the firefighter’s union at Montreal city hall in Montreal on Monday, August 18, 2014. The firefighters were demonstrating at city hall against the proposed Bill 3, a pension reform bill.

The Montreal city clerk’s office in fact began restricting access to Montreal city hall after a protest in August by municipal workers who barged into council chambers and ransacked the room.

Varying numbers of police officers have been stationed at entrances to city hall since then. The city clerk’s office also devised a new procedure for members of the public to sign up for the public question period at council meetings that requires them to register and wait inside a building across the street rather than inside city hall.

The police can only ask a person for their identity if they have reasonable cause to believe the person has committed or is about to commit an offence, said lawyer Mark Bantey, who represents the Montreal Gazette among media clients. There’s one exception: when a person is stopped by police while driving.

Bantey said he was surprised to learn journalists with accreditation are being searched at city hall. As a lawyer, he said, he’s waved through searches at the Montreal courthouse when he presents his Quebec Bar Association card.

Dimitri Roussopoulos, who chairs the city’s task force on municipal democracy, said he experienced the heightened police presence at city hall a few weeks ago.

A co-founder of the Institute for Policy Alternatives Montreal, Roussopoulos went to city hall to attend a public consultation. Two officers stopped everyone entering the building, he said.

“I was asked to empty my pockets, I was frisked,” Roussopoulos said. The officers, however, did not ask his name.

Roussopoulos said he was also surprised last year when he witnessed police herding protesters from the street into city hall to detain and arrest them during a council meeting that he attended to ask a question.

The demonstrators were outside city hall protesting city bylaw p-6, which requires demonstrators to provide their route to police and prohibits them from wearing masks, he said.

They (the police) in fact turned city hall into a police station.”— Dimitri Roussopoulos, chairperson of city’s task force on municipal democracy

“I was taken aback by that, because they (the police) in fact turned city hall into a police station,” Roussopoulos said.

The process to register to ask a question at council meetings is already bureaucratic enough, he said. The time allotted to the public question period is limited, as are the number of questions different people can ask on one topic, and the city clerk’s office holds a lottery to assign everyone a number.

“For most people, it’s an intimidating experience to ask questions at city council,” Roussopoulos said. “So why make it more complicated and intimidating?”

Ottawa and Toronto city halls, by comparison, restrict each person who speaks at a public meeting to five minutes, but do not limit the number of people who can speak.

“It’s not our intention to restrict access to city hall,” Benjamin said. “We need to ensure a balance between accessibility and security of people who come to city hall.”

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/policing-civil-liberties-at-montreal-city-hall/feed0112814-1030_city_security-1201_city_cityhall-W.jpglindagyulaiMontreal Mayor Denis Coderre, standing, speaks during a City Council meeting in a room littered with papers from an earlier protest by the firefighter's union at Montreal city hall in Montreal on Monday, August 18, 2014. The firefighters were demonstrating at city hall against the proposed Bill 3, a pension reform bill. Coderre too literally interpreted when he said no tax hike: mayor's officehttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/coderre-was-too-literally-interpreted-when-he-said-no-tax-increase-or-service-cuts-mayors-office
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/coderre-was-too-literally-interpreted-when-he-said-no-tax-increase-or-service-cuts-mayors-office#commentsFri, 21 Nov 2014 11:40:55 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=401754]]>When Mayor Denis Coderre said at a public meeting on Wednesday that he won’t increase taxes or cut municipal services, he meant to say there would be a small tax increase in the city budget next week, his office said on Thursday.

Coderre told a city executive committee meeting that was webcast live over the Internet on Wednesday that the city’s 2015 operating budget, to be tabled next Wednesday, will focus on public transit and economic development and will be “very promising” in demonstrating how his administration operates.

“We’ll have a budget next week that will be very promising, that will demonstrate the extent to which we … the way we operate,” the mayor said during his closing remarks for the weekly public meeting. “We’re saying we’ll take control of the apparatus, we’ll take control of public funds to ensure the cleanup of public funds and along the way — because it’s the same pocket that pays — we won’t increase taxes or cut services.”

Coderre’s director of communications phoned the Montreal Gazette on Thursday to say what Coderre meant is that there will be a tax increase in next week’s budget. But the increase will be below the inflation rate established by the Conference Board of Canada, as Coderre has said in the past, Louis-Pascal Cyr said.

Cyr said an article in the paper that quoted Coderre’s statement word-for-word had wrongly “interpreted” the mayor’s comment.

“It’s a bad interpretation, too literal in this context,” Cyr added. As proof, no other media reported on Coderre’s comment, he said.

Cyr also said the article’s reference to Coderre’s 15-minute discourse as a “monologue” was objectionable. He offered to find the newspaper a different word to use in the future.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/coderre-was-too-literally-interpreted-when-he-said-no-tax-increase-or-service-cuts-mayors-office/feed0102914-1030_city_capital_works007A.jpg-POS1410291435053561-218687232-1030_city_capital_works007A-W.jpglindagyulaiWhen the MCM took on Jean Drapeauhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-beginning-of-an-adventure-when-mcm-took-on-drapeau
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-beginning-of-an-adventure-when-mcm-took-on-drapeau#commentsMon, 10 Nov 2014 13:21:48 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=377055]]>Thérèse Daviau wore pants to her first city council meeting in 1974.

The detail may seem ho-hum – banal, like the fact there’s a women’s washroom on the main floor of Montreal city hall, or that opposition councillors can walk the halls of the city’s seat of governance.

But Daviau showed moxie in her wardrobe choice. It was an act of defiance against Montreal’s mayor at the time, Jean Drapeau, who had expressly warned her and the two other women with whom she had just been elected to the opposition that he would not tolerate women in slacks in council.

Daviau’s pants can be seen as a symbol of a revolution in city politics that had been launched weeks earlier, with the municipal election of Nov. 10, 1974.

“The election was a historic moment for Montreal and it’s worth being recalled,” says André Berthelet, one of 18 candidates of the nascent Montreal Citizens’ Movement who won council seats that year.

It was an election that ushered in many firsts: the city’s first opposition councillors, the first women elected to Montreal city council under universal suffrage, the first “real” political party at the municipal level, the first break in a chain of merchants, insurance agents and business owners who had till then monopolized the seats in council chambers as yes-men to a mayor who was increasingly called an autocrat.

It would be another dozen years before the MCM would be swept to power and institute democratic reforms that Montrealers might take for granted today, be it the introduction of public consultations or the public’s right to ask questions at council meetings.

In-fighting between radical and moderate elements of the party, a catastrophic split of the vote between the MCM and the spin-off Municipal Action Group (MAG) in the 1978 vote and a period of rebuilding filled the intervening years.

But the roots of reform, of doing municipal politics a different way, were laid with the ’74 vote, veterans of that election say.

“It was the beginning of an adventure,” said Léa Cousineau, who was an MCM candidate in ’74 and the party’s first president. She lost her election, but won in the 1986 MCM sweep that also elected the party’s mayoral candidate, Jean Doré. In his second term as mayor, he appointed Cousineau chairperson of the city’s top decision-making body, the executive committee, making her the first woman to hold the position.

In 1974, people were proud to be Montrealers, and had a willingness to identify with the city and to re-appropriate it.” — Léa Cousineau, an MCM candidate in 1974

In fact, she discovered years after the fact that she had been the first woman to preside over a political party in Canada.

“In 1974, people were proud to be Montrealers, and had a willingness to identify with the city and to re-appropriate it,” Cousineau said.

The scandal over the construction of Montreal’s billion-dollar Olympic installations was just beginning. The city was also going through a demolition derby, with the Drapeau administration allowing historic downtown mansions and whole neighbourhoods to be bulldozed to make way for skyscrapers and expressways.

“A lot of people reproached Jean Drapeau for his dreams of grandeur and his way of managing things,” said Berthelet, who would later serve as city council speaker during the MCM’s two mandates at city hall between 1986 and 1994.

Many of the MCMers who were elected with Berthelet in ’74, or who helped found the party, are now in their 70s or 80s. A number of them, including Daviau — who was known as Daviau-Bergeron in those days — have died.

Related

The MCM began between late 1973 and the spring of 1974 as a reaction to the way Drapeau ran city hall without input, even from members of his Civic Party.

“At the very beginning, there were discussions whether we were going to be a movement or a party,” Cousineau said. “We rapidly decided we would move towards founding a party.”

It was a movement that brought together trade unionists, teachers, students, anglophones, francophones, communists, Péquistes, New Democrats, mothers, writers, community organizers and people from the west end of the city, the centre and the east.

“We sensed there was a lot dissatisfaction towards Drapeau and his team,” said Paul Cliche, another member of the ’74 class of MCM councillors.

Cliche had played a key role in forming the Front d’action politique (FRAP) for the city election four years earlier. However, the 1970 election coincided with the October Crisis. Drapeau won all the council seats and took 91.8 per cent of the vote. The FRAP folded.

Raised hopes

The MCM went into the’74 campaign with modest expectations of winning four to six council seats.

The MCM’s chief organizer raised their hopes on the eve of the election, predicting they would elect a dozen councillors, Cousineau said.

Yet even that number fell short.

Berthelet was the MCM’s 18th councillor — giving the MCM one-third of the 54 council seats. He was declared a winner after a recount that took an agonizing three weeks.

The city was divided into 19 districts in those days, most of which elected three councillors apiece.

Drapeau won the mayoralty with 55 per cent of the vote, but far short of the “victoires comme je les aime,” (“victories as I like them”), Berthelet said, quoting Drapeau on his previous crushing wins.

The MCM’s mayoral candidate, Jacques Couture, nabbed 39 per cent of the vote, aided by voters in largely anglophone districts, recalls another ’74 MCM winner, Robert Keaton. Then a political science doctoral student, Keaton’s thesis work was permanently derailed when he won his seat in Côte-des-Neiges.

Support among English-speaking voters was remarkable, Keaton said, given that Couture “was a unilingual, indépendentiste, working-class priest.”

If the campaign had lasted any longer, Keaton said, it was conceivable the MCM would have beaten Drapeau and the Civic Party.

Keaton recalls contemplating the possibility with Nick Auf der Maur, who would be a fellow MCM council winner in Côte-des-Neiges district, over drinks in the dying days of the ’74 campaign.

“We were sitting there mulling over the possibilities of what would happen, my God, if we were to win,” Keaton said, laughing. “ ‘We’re not prepared,’ I said. It would be a catastrophe if we were to take over city hall.”

Cliche credits Couture for being able to articulate Montrealers’ growing sense that they wanted a say in shaping their neighbourhoods, their “petites patries,” (“small countries”) as Couture called them.

Still, after the ’74 election, came four years of forging an uneasy relationship with Drapeau, who also served as council speaker. In council, he umpired disputes that involved him, and determined who and what was out-of-order.

Berthelet, who was MCM party whip, said councillors were given no offices, desks or even a drawer in a filing cabinet to use at city hall.

With only a communal phone for Civic Party and MCM members to share in a room next to council chambers during meetings, Berthelet and his colleagues often found themselves in line at a public phone booth in Place Jacques-Cartier, across from city hall, with stacks of council documents under their arms to check information.

Still, individual relations with Civic Party members were respectful, Berthelet said.

Women’s washroom built

In fact, he could sometimes count on the two Civic Party councillors in his Villeray district to second his motions in council.

During their first year on council, Daviau and her female colleagues would use the men’s room on the main floor of city hall, while a male colleague would stand guard at the door.

A women’s washroom was eventually built during their mandate.

In fact, Drapeau didn’t expel Daviau and her pant-clad female colleagues at their first council meeting, Berthelet said.

“Mayor Drapeau couldn’t expel her,” he said. “He was very conscious of the fact that it would have created a shock, even across the province.”

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/the-beginning-of-an-adventure-when-mcm-took-on-drapeau/feed0110714-1110_city_MCM_-_0136-1107_city_mcm-W.jpglindagyulaiCelebrating his stunning 1978 election victory, Mayor Jean Drapeau raises his hands to cheering supporters. Montreal Citizens' Movements Thérèse Daviau, standing, with an unidentified woman October 3, 1978. Ste-Catherine St. contract 'highly problematic': watchdoghttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/ste-catherine-st-contract-highly-problematic-watchdog-finds
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/ste-catherine-st-contract-highly-problematic-watchdog-finds#commentsTue, 28 Oct 2014 00:58:49 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=355135]]>The city of Montreal’s tendering process for a contract to organize a public consultation on the reconstruction of Ste-Catherine St. W. was “highly problematic,” the city’s newest corruption watchdog has found.

The inspector general’s office, created by Mayor Denis Coderre, found numerous problems with the ways in which the $267,000 contract was ultimately awarded to the Acertys firm by the city’s department of infrastructure, transport and environment. The report was released Monday afternoon.

The city announced in June it will tear up a 2.1-kilometre stretch of Ste-Catherine St. starting in 2016 to repair water and sewage pipes and revamp the commercial artery stretching from Atwater Ave. to Place des Arts.

It put out a call for tenders Dec. 18, 2013, calling on private firms to handle the public consultation process. Interested parties were given till Jan. 20. to submit a bid. Twelve companies picked up the contract specifications.

The $267,000 contract was awarded March 27 to Acertys.

On May 18, the inspector general’s department received a complaint from one of the bidders alleging Acertys was given an unfair advantage, in part because it was earlier given an untendered contract for $23,600 to help prepare a preliminary study on the project, and the call for tenders. Little research was done to find other bidders for the preliminary study.

The city’s auditor general’s office was also called to study the contract, but found no wrongdoing. However, the inspector general’s office noted the auditor general’s office lacks the legal powers of the inspector general to collect the necessary information.

In its investigation, officers with the bureau found several warning signs the bidding process was “highly problematic.”

Bidders were under great pressure to work quickly because a delay could affect the repair work on Ste-Catherine St. and part of the work was expected to be finished in conjunction with the city’s 375th birthday celebrations in 2017. The rush could also have negatively affected the city’s bid tendering process.

The call for tenders was improperly categorized, causing unqualified firms to pick it up and possibly keeping qualified companies from finding it.

Of the 12 firms, only Acertys fit the criteria for eligibility. Among the criteria, applicants had to have handled similar contracts worth at least $100,000, which eliminated all but three competing firms; and the project manager would need at least 20 years of experience with similar projects, eliminating all but three firms.

The one-month deadline covered the period of the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, precluding many firms from bidding.

No study was done to see how many eligible firms there were that could have bid.

Many civil servants were aware few firms would be eligible and warned the city manager responsible for the project of the potential risks having so few bidders — he made decisions without properly analyzing the consequences. The project manager asked to be on the selection committee, and contacted Acertys directly twice during the bidding process.

The project manager was newly hired by the city from the private sector and unclear on city bidding processes.

Given all those elements, the inspector general’s office found the call for tenders was not open to the market, and put civil servants and their level of expertise in a bad light. It could not say the firm influenced the outcome, but it was clear the firm had an advantage. It recommends the administration tighten the city’s rules regarding awarding of contracts.

Because the details of the case did not allow the inspector general to cancel the contract under the law, it suggested it be left up to the discretion of city council to decide if the contract should be cancelled.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/ste-catherine-st-contract-highly-problematic-watchdog-finds/feed0102714-ste_catherine-POS1409151626461193-1028_city_council-W.jpgrbruemmerBergeron has come a long wayhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/bergeron-leaves-big-shoes-to-fill
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/bergeron-leaves-big-shoes-to-fill#commentsMon, 27 Oct 2014 20:44:50 +0000http://montrealgazette.com/?p=354090]]>On his first big day on the job back in 2005, Richard Bergeron filed a motion in city council.

“Physically, what do I do with it?” Bergeron, who had been sworn in as a city councillor four days earlier, asked the council speaker as he waved the sheet of paper with his motion. “Drop it on the floor?”

Bergeron, who resigned on Monday as the first leader of the Projet Montréal party he co-founded just over a decade ago, has learned a lot more than council procedure since first getting elected to council, his colleague and early Projet Montréal builder André Cardinal says.

“I’ve watched Richard evolve in an interesting way,” he said. “He has become more practical while always having an interesting global vision in regards to the environment (and) to transit.”

As a result, Bergeron leaves big shoes for the party to fill as an intellectual and visionary whose ideas have served as a rudder for the party, said Cardinal, who was a councillor with the defunct Montreal Citizens’ Movement.

“People are starting to copy his discourse,” he said of Bergeron. “People are talking a lot more about public transit. He has an influence.”

Bergeron was born in 1955 in Alma, Qc. He was three-and-a-half years old when his mother became paralyzed giving birth to her youngest of five sons. Unable to cope, Bergeron’s father placed his children in an orphanage.

Bergeron was four, the story goes, when he built an accurate model of his orphanage from a set of building blocks. He was labelled brilliant, and perfect marks in high school, a degree in architecture and a master’s and a doctorate in urban planning would go some way to backing that up.

Bergeron was a transit planner with the Agence métropolitaine de transport when he entered municipal politics.

Initially the lone Projet Montréal member on council and dismissed by some as a conspiracy theorist, Bergeron was joined by nine other Projet Montréal councillors at the next election in 2009. The party also elected four borough councillors that year.

Last November, the party doubled its number of seats.

But that wasn’t enough for Bergeron, who had begun plotting Projet Montréal’s impending victory – and his as mayor of Montreal – right after his first election.

The fact that Bergeron can step aside without fear that the party will crumble shows that Projet Montréal has built itself into a genuine party, said former MCM councillor Arnold Bennett.

‘The party’s more than him,” he said.

Bergeron’s ability to keep a handle on a formation that has grown to 1,500 members stemmed from the fact that he proposed ideas inspired by cities in Europe and the United States that excited others, Cardinal said. He was also willing to share the spotlight with up-and-comers in his party, including Luc Ferrandez, the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough mayor who has been chosen as interim party leader.

“You have to open yourself to the world to be a better politician and not be stuck on the last scandal,” Cardinal said. “And I think Bergeron succeeded in his gamble.”

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/bergeron-leaves-big-shoes-to-fill/feed0102714-1028_citybergeron_2139-POS1410271230330903-1028_city_bergeron_sb-W.jpglindagyulaiFour police officers sanctioned for trashing of city hall: reportshttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/four-police-officers-sanctioned-for-trashing-of-city-hall-reports
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/four-police-officers-sanctioned-for-trashing-of-city-hall-reports#commentsThu, 16 Oct 2014 18:23:38 +0000http://postmediamontrealgazette2.wordpress.com/?p=306205]]>Montreal police brass were to answer questions later Thursday morning about rumours that four officers of the SPVM will be sanctioned for their inaction while protesters trashed city hall on Aug. 18.

Blue-collar workers and firefighters invaded the council chambers during a meeting to protest against changes to the pension fund. The mayor and councillors fled and took refuge in the the mayor’s office.

It is alleged that officers on duty looked the other way. They are involved in the same pension dispute.

All calls to police have been referred to headquarters, which opens at 8 a.m.

]]>http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/four-police-officers-sanctioned-for-trashing-of-city-hall-reports/feed0STK_policeanniesutherlandHead of firefighters union vows retributionhttp://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/firefighters-demonstrate-at-jeanne-mance-park
http://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/firefighters-demonstrate-at-jeanne-mance-park#commentsTue, 14 Oct 2014 23:40:57 +0000http://postmediamontrealgazette2.wordpress.com/?p=277584]]>The president of the firefighters union warned Montreal’s mayor and director general Tuesday: there will be retribution for his six-month suspension.

On Tuesday, Ronald Martin was told by the Montreal fire department’s top brass he was suspended without pay for six months for his part in the trashing of city hall that took place on Aug. 18.

He took issue with the suspension occurring before the tribunal looking into the events had come to any conclusions.

“This is a sombre day. This is the first time that a union president has been suspended while performing his union duties,” Martin said. “In Quebec, the presumption of innocence has fallen again.”

Martin took the opportunity Tuesday to warn Mayor Denis Coderre that he won’t be backing down and will continue to fight the issues, which are changes to the pensions of city employees, firefighters, police and blue collar workers.

Despite his suspension, Martin retains his position as president of the union, and has promised there will be more actions to protest against Bill 3, the proposed law to amend the pension plans of municipal employees. He did not say what specific actions would be taken.

“No one will stop me from performing my role as union president. Union action will continue, more than ever … more determined and forceful than ever,” he said.

Short of declaring an all-out war with the city, Martin had strong words for Coderre, and the city’s director general, Alain Marcoux, who was known for his anti-union actions when serving as director general of Quebec City.

“It’s the same attitude on the level of labour relations that’s starting to develop (now in Montreal),” he said. “But they have to understand one thing, this tandem of Marcoux and Coderre: Montreal is not Quebec City.”

He added that firefighters are risking their lives and showing dedication every day to rescue Montrealers in trouble, and they feel they have been betrayed.

“These guys are dedicated, but the city continues to attack them,” he said.

In the past, Martin has said Coderre has interfered in the disciplining process, and has even exerted political pressure on police to dole out criminal charges. Martin is among 57 city employees (52 of them firefighters) facing charges of participating in an illegal assembly, mischief and assault. He said he will plead not guilty to the charges and will also contest Tuesday’s disciplinary action.

“In the end, the citizens will be paying for this legal battle,” he said.

In an interview Tuesday, Richard Liebmann, the fire department’s assistant director responsible for strategic operations and planning, said Martin’s suspension was not a political decision dictated from on high.

He said the city’s analyzed the video and testimony of the event. The city’s human resources department also played a role in ensuring that punishments meted out to all employees were equivalent for similar actions. The decision to suspend Martin was not based on his role as a union head, but based on his actions during the event, Liebmann said. Excluding Martin, six firefighters were fired and 46 suspended without pay for their actions in the protest. Seven blue-collar workers and four white-collar workers were also suspended without pay.

“From an employer standpoint, we have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment and intimidation in the workplace, so we can’t at the same time turn a blind eye to acts of intimidation by our employees at city hall,” Liebmann said. “In this particular case, most of these things were done in front of television cameras, and hundreds of witnesses, so all that evidence was pretty straightforward.”

Liebmann said Tuesday’s disciplinary action has no relation to the criminal investigation into Martin’s role in the protest.